


Solar Flare

by marmolita



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s02e05 Kinbaku, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 17:10:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7853824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/pseuds/marmolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did you ever try to find that piece of shit?" she asks, when he tells her about Roscoe Sweeney.  It's nice, actually, to hear the disgust in her voice when she says it, to know that even someone who never knew his dad would still feel outrage over his murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solar Flare

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Daredevil Bingo prompt, "on the mat." It occurred to me after I wrote it that there's not actually a mat in the boxing ring. Oops. The mod confirmed that it's still acceptable. :)

The glass tinkles down around his feet as Elektra breaks in the window with the handle of his cane, and Matt can't help the little thrill of excitement that worms its way into his belly, between the waves of guilt at breaking and entering and at vandalizing the property of a man who's been good to him. "I'm gonna have to pay for that," he says as Elektra reaches through and opens the door.

"I'll stake you," she replies lightly, shoving the cane back into his chest. It's been at least a year since he was last here, but the smell of Fogwell's Gym is as familiar as the back of his hand. Fogwell's is both a comfort and a curse -- a place so steeped in memories of his father that every time he walks in the door he remembers the feel of his dad's sweaty face, the sharp bite of alcohol, the sound of a gunshot and the smell of blood.

But he's gotten good at compartmentalizing that over the years, so he just jokes with Elektra about liking to smell the sweat. She does ask about his father, then, about how he died and what killed him. He thinks she sounds genuinely sorry when he tells her his father died, but on the other hand she sounds positively excited when she asks if his dad was a criminal.

People don't usually ask about his dad. People usually stop at "I'm sorry," because people are polite, and because people are not really all that interested. Elektra's not polite, and she's very interested. "Did you ever try to find that piece of shit?" she asks, when he tells her about Roscoe Sweeney. It's nice, actually, to hear the disgust in her voice when she says it, to know that even someone who never knew his dad would still feel outrage over his murder.

"Yeah, once, when I was a kid." Matt climbs up onto the edge of the ring, leaning on the ropes. "Got nothing, learned to live with it." It's an incredible oversimplification of the truth. After Stick left, his sadness at being left alone gradually changed into a burning hot anger. By the time he was fifteen, Matt was angry at Stick, angry at God, angry at fucking Roscoe Sweeney for taking his father's life and leaving him to be abandoned over and over again. He knew he'd never find Stick or beat him if he could, and there was nothing to be done about being angry at God other than refusing to go to Mass, but Roscoe Sweeney? Maybe there was something he could do after all.

He'd gone to Fogwell's, back then. First time back since his dad had died, though Sam Fogwell had come to check up on Matt a couple times the first year or two he was in the orphanage. He'd almost choked at the smell half a block away, overwhelmed with memories, but he'd forced himself through it. Into the gym, and he'd asked Sam about Roscoe Sweeney. "Leave it alone, kid," Sam had said, "there ain't nothing gonna bring back your old man." But Matt was angry, and he wasn't going to leave it alone. He pestered everyone coming in and out of the gym for two weeks until finally a muscle-thick man with a few missing teeth told him that Sweeney could be found in a bar down on 46th street.

He'd gone to the bar. Waited across the street, because he was way too scrawny and short to pass for anything close to 21. Waited until a group of men came tumbling out, laughing and tripping over their own feet, until someone said, "Hey, Sweeney, don't forget to send your mama some flowers for her birthday!" and a familiar voice said, "Yeah, yeah, fuck you too."

Matt had stepped out into the street, fists clenched-- 

\--and almost gotten run over by a truck, roaring inches in front of his face, horn blasting. By the time he recovered from the surprise, his heart still racing so fast he could feel his chest vibrating, he'd lost Sweeney in the crowded streets.

He came back every day for a month, but never heard him again. When he waited outside Fogwell's for the man with the missing teeth and asked, the man told him Sweeney had left Hell's Kitchen for greener pastures.

So he'd learned to live with it, that much was the truth. "He probably went underground," he says to Elektra, and she adds, "Six feet, I hope." The steady drum of her heart says she's not lying.

"You don't have to feel sorry for me."

"I don't."

"You sure?" he asks, listening closely.

"Yes." It's not a lie, probably the first time since he was blinded that someone has meant it when they said they didn't feel sorry for him. "I've seen it, here and there, over the past few weeks. You're so much more than you let on."

Matt laughs. "Okay," he says, climbing into the ring. "I feel like I've told you more in the last ten minutes than I've told anyone else in the ten years." He doesn't just feel that way, it's the truth. There's something about Elektra that makes him--

He dodges her kick at the last second without thinking, then when she says, "I knew it!" realizes that he's given too much of himself away.

"Knew what?" he asks, feigning innocence, but his heart is racing and hers is too. She swings for him and he dodges again, caught up in the adrenaline rush.

"You said you were blind."

"No, _you_ said I was blind." He shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be revealing himself to her, but when he's with Elektra he feels like . . . like there's someone else who understands. Like she _gets_ him on some level that nobody else does. Like she's been there, like they're somehow the same.

"So you can see?"

"Not exactly," he says, tossing his glasses aside. He hasn't sparred with anyone in years but as she comes at him he blocks reflexively, then catches her arm. "What about you? You said you took ballet lessons."

"I did, in the winters, when my capoeira master returned to Angola." Elektra breaks his hold, ducks, spins -- a kick, a block, a flying punch, _definitely_ not all capoeira. He dodges past her and smacks her on the ass, laughing. He's never felt this before, never met someone like her. He can't keep the grin off his face.

"Muay Thai?"

"Every other Thursday."

"Of course." Punch, punch, and she's fast, gets past his guard. Her fist connects with his mouth and his teeth rip through his lip, blood trickling down his jaw. "You got me," he says, like getting punched in the face is the best thing in the world. Maybe it is.

Still, he thinks maybe their little game will end here, stop at first blood. She surprises him, hitting him in the face again. "Get me back. Get me!" Her voice is angry; she attacks, and he knows there's no holding back now. She wants a fight and she's going to get one.

The crash together, fists and feet, until Elektra's got him on the floor with his arm held behind his back. "I win," she says, and underneath the sweat and the miasma of the gym, he can smell her arousal.

"Yeah, first round, maybe," he says. "We're just getting started." He rolls them so he's on top, arm across her neck holding her down.

And then they're kissing, touching, clothes coming off, their blood pounding in their veins and pounding in his ears, making his nerves tingle all over. Every brush of her skin and her lips sends tremors down his spine to pool between his legs. She pushes him down and straddles him, tossing her clothes aside even as her hands roam over his body. He slides his own hands up her back, fingertips moving fluidly across soft, sweat-slick skin.

She takes him there, in the middle of the ring, her body inflaming his senses, blazing heat through both of them. Matt can hardly breathe, can hardly even think beyond the feeling of her skin on his. When he handles her roughly she urges him on, always wanting more, always willing to take whatever he can give. His hands map out her body, starting from her toes and climbing up to her throat, where she joins his hand with hers and squeezes. Elektra is the devil inside of him brought to life, his perfect complement, pulling him into her orbit.

He could die like this, he thinks. If she's a supernova, he'll gladly be burned alive. If she's a black hole, he'll let her swallow him up.

This feeling of completion is something he's been waiting for his whole life, since his dad died, since Stick left, since losing Roscoe Sweeney on a hot summer night when he was 15 years old. Maybe all of it was for a reason after all. Maybe it was all just leading him to her.

He can't wait to find out.


End file.
